RHAs banned from hiring private nurses

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This article was published 05/12/2024 (482 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government has banned all health regions in the province, including Prairie Mountain Health (PMH), from signing new agreements with private agencies that allow nurses to be hired away from the public health care system.

Among all of Manitoba’s health authorities, PMH currently has 29 private agency contracts in place — the highest — with other regional health authorities (RHAs) holding a total of 51 contracts.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara made the announcement about the ban at a news conference held on Wednesday morning in Winnipeg. They are issuing a Request For Proposal (RFP) to reduce the number of contracted agencies operating in the province and impose controls on the rates they charge.

“We have to get a handle on agencies,” Asagwara said. “Private for-profit agencies have exploited the health-care system, charging six times the rate of a nurse (working) in the public system,” they said, adding, “Frankly, for-profit nursing agencies have really turned the health-care system and staffing into a quest for the highest bidder.”

Hundreds of contracts have been awarded to the 70 private agencies operating in the province, added Asagwara, without policies offering guidelines on how they should be governed, their impact on nurses, or the rates they charge.

The RFP will also require agencies that want to hold a contract with Manitoba, “to play by our rules as a government,” they said.

In the last year and 10 months alone, PMH has spent $45.8 million on agency nurses. In 2023-24, it spent $25.8 million. This year, it shelled out $20 million between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31.

During PMH’s annual general meeting held on Oct. 30, Treena Slate, the health region’s CEO, said “agency and overtime” were the main driver of the deficit, which is currently pegged at $41 million.

Compared with other health authorities in the province, the $20 million PMH spent on agency nurses this year is the highest. Next in line is the Northern RHA, which spent $12.2 million, followed by the Interlake-Eastern RHA at $11.2 million, the Southern RHA at $7.7 million, and the Winnipeg RHA at $4 million.

Slate said she commends the province for applying “enhanced governance over agencies.”

“We are glad the province is taking the necessary steps to ensure there will be no gaps in care as we transition from a heavy reliance on agencies to employing enough staff to meet our needs,” Slate said in an email to the Sun on Wednesday.

“We welcome actions that will encourage nurses and health-care aides to return to the public system,” Slate added.

The $20-million cost to PMH can be broken down into 261,157 hours of private-agency nursing, or an hourly rate of $80.34. Contrast that with the mid-range wage for a general duty registered nurse, which is around $45 per hour, according to the Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU).

MNU president Darlene Jackson, who was also present at Wednesday’s news conference, said she has been advocating for a plan to bring nurses back to the public health-care system “for years.”

Jackson was part of a committee that made recommendations to the government, and said it’s “amazing” that those recommendations have resulted in the RFP.

“Pulling that much money from taxpayers to line the pockets of for-profit agencies goes against everything in the Canada Health Act,” Jackson said in a phone interview.

“And the millions from Prairie Mountain Health, can you imagine if that money was poured back into our public health care system, how much difference it would make for nurses to actually be staffed appropriately, to be able to provide patient care,” she said.

Jackson said there are several reasons why nurses chose to work for private agencies over their own health region. These include work-life balance and the safety of patients. And that has translated into staff shortages at health-care facilities, forcing RHAs to turn to agencies to shore up shifts.

“The bottom line is,” said Jackson, “when we have enough people in our public health-care system, nurses will come back because they’re not being subjected to mandated overtime, or patient loads so you can actually provide good, solid, safe, quality patient care. That’s what nurses want.”

The RFP posted Wednesday says the province wants a list of contract vendors of up to three per health region and service delivery organization.

Its objectives are to “obtain the highest quality of services” in its hiring of nurses, achieve efficiencies in processes and services, enhance compliance with the service delivery organization’s policies, training and processes, and to “enhance customer satisfaction and improvements in service.”

The request for proposals says successful vendors will be subject to a governance process that could include an annual business review with government representatives.

The deadline for proposals is Jan. 6.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press

» X: @enviromichele